Corbyn says May heads 'a zombie government'

Jeremy Corbyn has accused Theresa May of heading a “zombie government”. In a statement about May’s speech, and her call for cross-party cooperation (see 11.50am), he said:

Theresa May says she wants parties to contribute ideas. But when we asked her government to give its support to Labour’s Queen’s Speech amendment to give millions of public sector workers a much needed pay-rise, the Conservatives voted against it.

Only yesterday Theresa May delivered a slap in the face to hard working teachers by giving them another real term cut by maintaining the 1 per cent pay cap.

The prime minister now heads a zombie government that has no ideas, no answers and no leadership. Her premiership has run out of steam and she will soon have to deal with her own insecure employment.

Obviously, we’ve got to get rid of zero-hours contracts, obviously we’ve got to get rid of the gig economy and bogus self-employment, which actually is a wonderful way for a minority of employers to evade paying employers’ national insurance contributions.

We want self-employed workers to have rights and self-employed workers to be able to live decently. That means access to benefits if and when they need them, but it also means that bogus self-employment has to be dealt with.

Yes, [the gig economy] does suit some people, because of their family arrangements or whatever, to work part-time. But we do think that zero-hours contracts are not the way to do it.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, has said that using Uber is not “morally acceptable”. (See 9.02am.)

Ukip has put out a press notice about Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill comments (see 1pm) headlined: “Boris Johnson is starting to whistle the Ukip tune on Brexit.” It features this comment from Gerard Batten, Ukip’s Brexit spokesman.

Boris’s comments in the Commons regarding the EU’s ‘excessive’ demands for a ‘leaving bill’, and his agreement that they could ‘go whistle for it’ show that reality is starting to sink in.

The EU will make excessive demands all areas. They don’t want us to leave and they will do all they can to delay, impede and discourage, in the hope we will change our minds.

Ukip has always said that Britain does not owe the EU a penny – indeed we could argue that they owe us for 44 years of waste, fraud, unnecessary costs, and missed economic opportunities.

However, this is a sterile argument that will go nowhere.

The government should tell the EU to get lost. It should seize the initiative in the Brexit ‘negotiations’ and tell the EU how we are leaving – not ask it how.

How No 10 announced contaminated blood inquiry to avert likely Commons defeat

Downing Street’s decision to announce an inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal is the second example we’ve had in less than two weeks of how much power backbenchers - plus John Bercow, the Commons speaker - now exercise over the executive because Theresa May does not have a majority.

On the final day of the Queen’s speech Bercow announced that he would call Stella Creasy’s amendment saying the government should pay for women from Northern Ireland to get an abortion in England if they need one. Bercow did not have to call the amendment, and previous speakers would probably have chosen not to. But Bercow used his discretion to decide that the matter should be put to a vote and, because Creasy had drummed up wide support in the Commons, about three hours later the government announced that it would pay for these abortions. That way ministers averted a debate they knew they would lose.

Last night Bercow allowed the Labour MP Diana Johnson to make an application for an emergency debate on the contaminated blood scandal. After hearing her short speech he granted the application (he did not have to - he would have been within his rights to say no), and a debate has been scheduled for this afternoon. If it were not for a statement on the Taylor review, it would have started at 12.30pm, with MPs debating the motion: “That this House has considered the need for an independent public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal.” At 12pm the government announced there would be an inquiry.

Taylor says, as an old public policy hand, he knows policy works best when it has public support. He says people may disagree with some of the recommendations, but there is strong support for the idea that people should have good jobs.